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Melisande cleared her throat and pulled gently away from Jasper. “If you gentlemen will excuse me, I’d like to see if there are any scraps for Mouse in the kitchen.”
Jasper had no choice but to bow as his lady wife nodded and walked toward the castle.
Munroe stared after her thoughtfully. “Your wife is a charming lady. Intelligent too.”
“Mmm-hmm,” Jasper concurred. “She does not like heights.”
“Ah.” Munroe turned to look at Jasper speculatively. “I wouldn’t have thought her your type.”
Jasper scowled. “You have no notion of my type.”
“Indeed I do. Six years ago, it ran to big-titted females of low intelligence and lower morals.”
“That was six years ago. Many things have changed since then.”
“That they have,” Mu‹ thThanroe said. He began strolling toward some overgrown terraces, and Jasper fell in beside him. “You’ve become a viscount, St. Aubyn is dead, and I have lost half my face, which, by the way, I don’t blame you for.”
Jasper stopped. “What?”
Munroe halted as well and turned to face him. He gestured toward the eye patch. “This. I don’t blame you for it, never have.”
Jasper looked away. “How can you not blame me? They cut your eye out when I broke.” When he’d groaned in horror at what was being done to his fellow captives.
Munroe was silent for a moment. Jasper couldn’t bear to look at him. The Scot had been a handsome man once. And though taciturn, he’d never before been a recluse. He used to sit by the fire with the other men and laugh at their coarse jokes. Did Munroe even smile anymore?
Finally, the other man spoke. “We were in hell then, weren’t we?”
Jasper clenched his jaw and nodded.
“But they were human, you know, not demons.”
“What?”
Munroe’s head was back, his one good eye closed. He looked like he was enjoying the breeze. “The Wyandot Indians who tortured us. They were human. Not animals, not savages, just humans. And it was their choice to put out my eye, not yours.”
“If I hadn’t groaned—”
Munroe sighed. “If you hadn’t made a sound, they would’ve put it out anyway.”
Jasper stared.
The other man nodded. “Yes. I’ve studied it since. It’s their way of dealing with prisoners of war. They torture them.” The unscarred corner of his mouth twisted up, though he looked far from amused. “Just as we hang small boys by the neck for picking a grown man’s pocket. It’s simply their way.”
“I don’t see how you can look at it so dispassionately,” Jasper said. “Don’t you feel anger?”
Munroe shrugged. “I’ve been trained to observe. In any case, I do not blame you. Your wife was quite adamant that I should tell you.”
“Thank you.”
“I think we must add loyal and fierce to your wife’s list of virtues. Can’t think how you found her.”
Jasper grunted.
“A rake like you doesn’t deserve her, you know.”
“Just because I don’t deserve her doesn’t mean I won’t fight to keep her.”
Munroe nodded. “Wise of you.”
