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She frowned at him, beautifully, of course. “You’re being didactic.”
“Yes, I am.” He smiled. “What’re you going to do about it?” Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Sophia and Phoebe exchange a raised-eyebrow glance, but he ignored them.
Mrs. Halifax tilted her nose in the air. “I just think you should be more polite to the woman who oversees the making of your bed.”
His eyebrows shot up. “Are you threatening to place toads in my bed, madam?”
“Perhaps,” she said loftily, but her eyes laughed at him.
His gaze dropped to her mouth, lush and wet, and he felt his loins turn to iron. He said low so no one else could overhear, “I would pay more attention to the threat were it something else you placed in my bed.”
“Don’t,” she whispered.
“Don’t what?”
“You know.” Those harebell-blue eyes met his, wide and vulnerable. “Don’t tease.”
Her murmured words should’ve made him feel ashamed. But, like the basest cad, it only heightened his interest. Careful, a voice whispered. Don’t let the woman seduce you into thinking you can give her what she wants. He should listen to that voice. Should obey and turn away from Mrs. Halifax before it was too late. Instead he leaned forward, beguiled despite himself.
LATER THAT EVENING, Miss Munroe lifted her dish of tea, pinned Helen with a piercing gaze, and asked, “How long has my brother employed you as his housekeeper?”
Helen swallowed the sip of tea she’d just taken and replied cautiously, “Only a few days.”
“Ah.” Miss Munroe sat back and stirred her tea vigorously.
Helen turned to her own tea, somewhat disconcerted. It was hard to tell whether that “ah” had been approving, disapproving, or something else entirely. After dinner they had retired to the sitting room, now cleaned—well, at least cleaner than it had been before. The maids had labored over it all afternoon and even had a fire crackling in the old stone fireplace. The stuffed animals still stared down out of rather gruesome glass eyeballs, but they no longer had trails of cobwebs hanging from their ears. That was a definite improvement.
Jamie and Abigail had stayed in the sitting room only long enough to make their good nights. When Helen had put them to bed and returned, Sir Alistair had been in discussion with Miss McDonald at the far end of the room. Miss Munroe had sat waiting by the door. If Helen was a suspicious sort, she’d wonder if Miss Munroe had been lying in wait for her.
Now she cleared her throat. “Sir Alistair said he hadn’t seen you in quite some time?”
Miss Munroe scowled over her tea. “He hides himself away here like a leper.”
“Perhaps he feels self-conscious,” Helen murmured.
She glanced to where Sir Alistair and Miss McDonald were in conversation. Instead of tea, he drank brandy from a clear glass. He tilted his head toward the older lady, listening gravely to whatever she was saying. His clubbed hair exposed his scars, but it also civilized his countenance. Studying his profile, she realized that without the scars, he was a handsome man. Had he been used to female attention before he’d been maimed? The thought disconcerted her, and she looked away from him.
Only to find Miss Munroe watching her with an inscrutable expression. “It’s more than self-consciousness.”
“What do you mean?” Helen frowned into her tea, thinking. “Abigail screamed when she first saw him.”
Miss Munroe nodded once, sharply. “Exactly. Children who don’t know him fear him. Even grown men have been known to look askance at him.”
“He doesn’t like making others uncomfortable.” Helen looked into Miss Munroe’s eyes, seeing a spark of approval there.
“Can you imagine?” Miss Munroe mused softly. “Having a face that made you the center of attention wherever you went? Having people stop and stare and be afraid? He can’t just be himself, can’t just fade into a crowd. Wherever he goes, he’s made aware of himself. He never has a moment of respite.”
“It would be hellish.” Helen bit her lip, a wave of unwanted sympathy washing over her, threatening to drown her good sense. “Especially for him. He’s so gruff on the outside, but on the inside I think he’s more sensitive than he likes to let on.”
“Now you begin to understand.” Miss Munroe sat back in her seat and stared broodingly at her brother. “It was actually better when he first returned from the Colonies. Oh, his wounds were fresher then, more shocking, but he hadn’t yet realized, I think. It was a year or two before he knew that it would always be like this. That he was no longer an anonymous man but a freak.”
Helen made a small sound of dissent at the harsh word.
Miss Munroe looked at her sharply. “It’s true. It does him no good to gloss over it, to pretend that the scars aren’t there or that he’s a normal man. He is what he is.” She leaned forward, her gaze so intense that Helen wanted to look away. “And I love him more for it. Do you hear me? He was a good man when he went away to the Colonies. He came back an extraordinary man. So many think that bravery is a single act of valor in a field of battle—no forethought, no contemplation of the consequences. An act over in a second or a minute or two at most. What my brother has done, is doing now, is to live with his burden for years. He knows that he will spend the rest of his life with it. And he soldiers on.” She sat back in her chair, her gaze still locked with Helen’s. “That to my mind is what real bravery is.”
Helen tore her eyes away from the other woman and stared blindly down at the teacup, her hand trembling. Earlier, in the kitchen, she’d not fully understood his burden. To tell the truth, she’d thought him a bit of a coward for hiding in his dirty castle. But now… To live an outcast to humankind for years and to understand fully that damnation—as surely such an intelligent man as Sir Alistair must—yes, that would take real fortitude. Real bravery. She’d never thought before about what Sir Alistair endured, what he would endure for the rest of his natural life.
She looked up. He still talked to Miss McDonald, his face in profile to her. His scars were all hidden from this angle. His nose was straight and long, his chin firm and somewhat pronounced. His cheek was lean, his eye heavy-lidded. He looked like a handsome, clever man. Perhaps a bit weary this late in the evening. He must’ve felt her gaze. He turned, fully revealing his scars now, welted and red and ugly. His eye patch hid his missing eye, but the cheek under it sagged.
