Why, I went to Tarth and saw her. I had six years on her, yet the wench could look me in the eye. She was a sow in silk, though most sows have bigger teats. When she tried to talk she almost choked on her own tongue. I gave her a rose and told her it was all that she would ever have from me.
Ronnet Connington, George R.R. Martin, A Feast for Crows
I can't even rage at this. This is so unfathomably humiliating.
Rejection is bad enough. Especially since it seems a rare thing to reject an arranged marriage. Brienne would have no doubts about why it happened.
But he could have lied. He could have been gentle. He could have said he loved another, or convinced his father to break the engagement for some (fake) political reason. He could have been kind.
But instead he looked at this girl, this awkward, shy teenager who is so nervous she cannot speak to him, who knows that she is no beauty and is not anyone's dream wife, and decides to be cruel. How dare she be tall and flat chested and shy? How dare she be ugly? What offense. She deserves not a husband, nor courtship, nor respect. For this transgression she deserves pain. She deserves shame. She deserves to have everyone know that she is so unwantable that he could not marry her, he could not even bear to bed her just enough to get a son and spend the rest of his nights with whores.
He gave her a rose, but it's not all she got from him.